College Days
by Argos
Summary: This is a short story written in the dark and tragic style of the School Days anime. It centers around the first semester of Evan's third year at college and how he deals with two women that ultimately change his life. R&R!
1. Chapter 1: September

This was a project I worked on in the Spring semester of my Junior year of college for an advanced fiction writing class. I got my inspiration from the School Days anime and I wanted to share with everyone. Its a little short (four chapters) however, everyone in my class enjoyed it, my teacher (who is a published author) enjoyed it so I'm really hoping everyone here will enjoy it and appreciate the School Days themes present within (something that no one in class ever picked up on XD)

Without further adieu please read and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own School Days blah blah blah

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"We take the same train to school each day. I gaze at her from the corner of my eye each day, she's always in the company of other girls laughing and talking so carefree. Just from how she acts I can tell that she is a friendly and out going person. I also notice that she enjoys reading on some days, I've seen her reading a book as the train stopped at the station. This is just a minute discovery in the grand scheme of things, yet with each passing day she becomes more beautiful. Her long auburn hair wrapped gently around her face as she read. We've been attending the same college for the past two years and now we're in the beginning of our third year. I learned that her name is Emily because that's what her friends call her, how I wish she was mine."

**September**

It was the first day of class and I was already late. Taking Principles of Molecular Biology at nine o'clock in the morning was not one of my smartest choices. I walked in late and tried to steal a chair in the back hoping to shrink away into obscurity. Dr. Fredgold taught this course and he was known to be a bastard, by sitting in the back I hoped to evade his gaze when he searched for someone to crucify.

"Evan Richards?"

"Damn it, of course he starts role call just as I arrive even though I'm a good five minutes late." I thought to myself raising my hand and turning around to look at the short and inescapably plump professor.

"Sit right here." He said motioning towards the middle seat in the first row of the stadium seated classroom, I cursed to myself and immediately hated this man more than anything else.

Sitting in the seat to my left was a guy I had in an economics classes; he was a real brown-noser and to my right sat a really pretty, yet shy girl I knew my first year from the writing club. She was the kind of girl who could be really pretty if she tried. She had wispy blonde hair that always danced around and refused to be caught in the red hair tie she used every day. I could go on for hours about how deathly dull this class was, but let's just say it ended with a two thousand word essay due that upcoming Friday.

The rest of my day was not much better. I looked forward to the train ride back home where I could casually and discreetly admire Emily, much to my dismay she never got on the train, she could have stayed late for a club meeting or something. Extra curricular activities weren't really my thing; I'd rather go home and play a computer game.

The next morning there she was as pretty as ever. When the morning sun hit her auburn hair just right I could see the natural blonde highlights.

On the second day of class I trudged up to the science center and took my usual seat next to brown-noser Billy, but the pretty blonde girl wasn't in the other seat. Dr. Fredgold came in and prepared his two hour PowerPoint presentation as someone sat down next to me. I thought it was the pretty blonde girl, but when I peered over I was shocked to see it was Emily.

"Mind if I sit here for the rest of the semester? I couldn't really see from back there," she motioned towards where the blonde girl had moved, "so I asked Susan to change with me." She looked at me as I just sat there and nodded stupidly, after a few awkward seconds she took her place next to me.

Ten minutes into the lecture she scribbled something on her note pad and pushed it in front of me.

"Hi."

I scribbled a similar response, but with a smiley face, she giggled a little. Emily wrote down some more words and passed the pad in my direction while looking forward pretending that she was paying attention.

"Don't we ride the same train together?"

I nodded instead of giving a written response.

"I thought so; my name is Emily, what's yours?"

"Evan."

This system of note writing carried on for the first week and a half of the semester, in retrospect it was not a good idea because I focused too much on talking to Emily than paying attention during the review for the first test of the semester. I wasn't too shocked when I got my test back on Wednesday, I was annoyed, not because of the great big "F" written on the front, but because of what happened as I was leaving class.

Dr. Fredgold asked if I could hang around after class for a few minutes, he assured me nothing was wrong.

"Nothing wrong my ass. No teacher in the world tells a student to see them after class to tell them what a great student they are." I thought bitterly.

Dr. Fredgold thought I was going to fail the course for the semester, and he asked one of the biology teacher assistants to tutor me.

Emily caught me as I was leaving the science building.

"Hey Evan wait up!" Emily shouted behind me.

"Dr. Fredgold asked me to tutor you for the next exam, what's a good day for you?"

I thought for a moment. I was shocked and excited when Emily said that she was going to tutor me. I just gawked at her stupidly before stuttering something unintelligible.

"How about Saturday afternoons?" Emily asked before I was able to say anything coherent.

I nodded my head enthusiastically.

"Great. See you Saturday at two." She said before rejoining up with her group of friends.

Saturday came fast. I had given Emily directions from the train station to my apartment and also cell number incase she had problems finding the place. I was pretty excited, aside from Emily being beautiful I didn't know much about her so rather than seeing this as a study session I saw it more as an opportunity to get to know her better.

Sure enough the doorbell rang five after two. I answered the door and showed Emily inside. My apartment isn't anything grand, it was a standard single bedroom apartment complete with a spacious sitting room, bathroom and kitchen, oh and with a killer view of the bay. Emily looked somewhat impressed.

"Were you expecting a crumbling piece of shit?" I joked closing the door and taking note of her awe.

"Not exactly, this is pretty nice for a college guy." Emily said placing her jacket carefully onto the black leather couch as if it was made of glass, yet oddly enough she dropped her purse on the glass coffee table.

"How can you afford this?" She eventually asked.

"Parents pay for the apartment and for school, but I have to come up with my own spending money. It's a decent arrangement –anyways, biology right?" I asked taking a seat on the couch; Emily remained on charcoal colored carpet and took out her notebook and biology book.

From these study sessions I not only learned biology, but I learned that we had a few things in common. I mentioned to her that I played the guitar and she forced me to play her a tune, it didn't sound right, but she seemed to have enjoyed my pitiful attempt at the song "You and Me." She also mentioned that she used to play tennis so I loaded up Wii sports tennis so we could play. I was impressed at how good she was. These sessions continued until the midterm exam in the first week of October.

"Do you think you're ready for the test on Monday?" Emily asked stuffing her book and notebook into her messenger bag.

"As ready as I'll ever be." I muttered. I felt some what confident, not with the test, but with what I was about to do next.

"Well then I'll see you Monday, we can review on the tr--" before Emily had been able to say train I kissed her. It had taken her aback and she was blushing profusely. She ran out the door afterwards, I thought I saw her smiling, but I wasn't sure. I didn't see her on the train on Monday, I was certain I blew it with her. She came to class five minutes late and sat down next to me, she gave me a smile as she handed me the test, and she never mentioned the kiss.


	2. Chapter 2: October

**October**

The first Monday in October we had our midterm, we got them back Friday. Emily and I decided to go for lunch after class. We went to the campus dining hall; lunch at eleven was a complete nightmare on this campus. From looking at it someone who doesn't go here would think it's a small college, but they just have never seen the eleven o'clock rush. People walk without paying attention, they stop abruptly when they know there is a person behind them, and the people at this school will decide the soda fountain is the perfect place to hold a twenty minute conversation with their friends about how trashed they got the past weekend or how they are going to get completely plastered this upcoming weekend. The dining hall was one large room with tables, both short and long, placed almost haphazardly throughout the area. The nicest thing about the dining hall was that it had really long windows with a perfect view of the quad outside. Emily and I were able to secure a table in front of one of the long windows.

"How did you do on the midterm Evan?" Emily asked taking a bite of her cheese burger with no cheese, she was lactose intolerant, but did not want to miss out on the taste of a cheeseburger.

"Passed with an eighty two." I said triumphantly.

"Awesome! Our sessions really paid off didn't they?" Emily said smiling while, I nodded.

"If I can find a chair is it ok if I sit with you guys?" a soft voice asked from behind me. I turned around and saw it was one of Emily's friends, she would later be introduced as Jessica. She was a very pretty girl with brown hair that flowed down to her collarbone and a very soft, yet powerful voice.

"Well I need to go, but Evan here will stay and keep you company right? Right." Emily smiled at me as she was gathering her things making room for Jessica to sit down.

"We're still on for gaming tonight right?" I asked before Emily left, she nodded.

"Gaming?" Jessica asked taking a sip of her soup.

"Yeah, you know video games?"

"I know. I'm not stupid. Do you play Halo?" She asked.

"Who doesn't these days?"

Up until now I didn't know Jessica all that well. Emily had only met her recently because Jessica was a new biology tutor. Since Jessica mentioned Halo the conversation doors flew wide open. She told me that she learned the trade of gaming from her brother, her little brother that is, and liked mostly first person shooters. She didn't seem like a gamer to me, she was the type of girl that popped her pink polo shirt collars, definitely not the gaming type. After lunch I told her to come by my apartment later that night so she could hang out with me and Emily and play Halo.

Emily came over just as I got out of the shower. I had just gotten home from work. I shouted for her to walk in from the bathroom, I went into the living room with just a towel on. I didn't have the body of a football player, but I wasn't exactly a couch potato either, I could feel Emily's eyes on me as I walked into my room and closed the door.

It was seven thirty by the time Jessica came over, when the bell rang Emily sounded confused who else was coming and I told her I invited Jessica over. Originally I had just wanted it to be just Emily and myself, but I couldn't resist seeing how good Jessica was at Halo. Emily didn't really enjoy Halo, but Jessica was having fun. I had set the game kill count to twenty and Jessica had won, I followed with eighteen kills and Emily finished with ten, most of which were mine. I purposely let her kill me so she wouldn't feel bad. After Halo Emily took out the Wii so we could play tennis. Emily won the first round; it wasn't really my night for gaming so I offered the Wii racquet to Jessica.

"I've never played tennis before, could you show me how?" Jessica asked looking at me. I showed her how to hold the racquet shaped remote, and then I put my hands on top of hers and showed her the simple backhand and forehand motions. Emily seemed annoyed that it was taking so long to get the game started and to her even greater annoyance Jessica had totally killed her in tennis. We played a few more rounds of tennis and Halo; Emily kept losing so she decided to leave.

It was ten o'clock and Jessica and I were alone in my apartment. She proposed that we watch a movie so I agreed and asked her to pick one out from the bookcase in my room. She came back with none other than Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The movie was pretty good, but I couldn't help to keep looking at Jessica. Not only was she pretty, but she was smart and good at Halo. Over the course of the movie she moved closer to me and by the time Qui-Gon Jinn had died we were shoulder to shoulder, but not in an uncomfortable way. After the movie had ended we sat in darkness as the credits rolled by. I looked at Jessica and before I asked her if she wanted me to walk her home she kissed me, and what struck me even more was that I was returning the kiss.

I told Emily what happened in class the next day, she seemed happy for me. After class she suggested that we do a double date that Friday to the local pumpkin patch.

Friday came pretty fast, unlike how the semester had been flowing. Emily, Jessica, Emily's boyfriend Rob and I arrived around sunset for the haunted hayride. We hadn't gone thirty feet inside the patch when Emily spotted a haunted house; she immediately suggested that we all go inside.

The haunted house was more like the house of perpetual mirrors. There were no lights at first, but when you get into the second room the lights turn on and you see yourself in about fifty mirrors, that was when we got separated. I can't tell you how many times I walked into a damn mirror. After about thirty minutes of stumbling around and seeing myself at every possible angle I found Emily, and from there we managed to find a backdoor out.

"That place sucked." I said nearly tripping over a pumpkin.

"Yeah, that wasn't so much fun after all." Emily said frowning

. We were in the back of the haunted house and just as the sun sank behind the hills something amazing happened; the pumpkin patch was a glow with hundreds upon hundreds of lights. The caretakers of the patch must have wired strands of orange and black lights throughout the patch as an ode to Halloween. The mix of orange and black swirled with the crimson and fuchsia of the twilight sky, Emily and I just stood there in awe.

"This is…" I began failing to find the right words.

"Amazing." Emily concluded. I wasn't prepared for what happened next. Emily gripped my hand, looked me straight in the eyes and pressed her soft rose petal lips to my chapped canyon of a mouth. She pulled back and ran off around the entrance of the house, the twilight catching the last few glimpses of scarlet in her hair for the day.

"What took you guys so long?" Jessica said.

"We were making out in the bushes." Emily said sending a mischievous smirk in my direction.

"Is that true?" Jessica asked.

"Of course not," I stuttered nervously when I said that.

"Let's hurry up or we'll miss the hayride." I said running down the path trying to escape the thoughts that jumped into my head.

. I thought the haunted part of the hayride was lame, but Jessica loved it, each attempt that the people made to scare her just widened the smile on her face. Despite having a wonderful time with Jessica on the hayride my mind kept drifting back to Emily and the forlorn look she gave me when she kissed me in the twilight of the pumpkin patch. By the second week of November Jessica and I were dating, when Emily found out she seemed disappointed. I often wonder if I made the right choice.


	3. Chapter 3: November

**November**

Thanksgiving had just passed. Emily and I decided to stay in town since we were both from out of state, where as Jessica went to her parent's home two hours away. By this time I had at lost all my feelings for Emily, we were just friends; we both liked it this way. I received a strange message one night two days after Thanksgiving from Emily. "Can I see you, please?" I read sleepily as I checked the clock; it was quarter of three in the morning.

"Is it important?" I wrote back and waited for a response.

"Yes."

"Want to meet at the park on the corner of Court Street and Rodeo Drive?" I sent before putting on sweat pants and my high school swim team sweatshirt.

A soft buzz on my dresser indicated she had responded.

"Ok."

The cold wind felt like someone was whipping me across the face with razor wire. It wasn't even winter and the wind chill was below freezing. Aside from the gentle glow of the moon the only source of light were the street lamps. I began to think of reasons why Emily would want to meet me this early in the morning. I hoped it wasn't anything bad. I turned the corner and saw Emily sitting on the swing set.

"Hey." I said casually as I sat down next to her on the second swing.

"I'm so glad you came." Emily said turning her head away from mine so I couldn't see her face. It was obvious that she had been crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked, trying to talk in a soothing tone.

"It's Ralph. He…he-"she began, but couldn't finish. Ralph was her current boyfriend; he had an apartment on the other side of town.

"What happened?" I asked my mouth going dry.

Emily turned her head slowly and looked at me. I was horrified at what I saw. Blood was smeared across her face, her left eye was slowly turning blue and there were marks on her arm indicating someone had grabbed her arm and held it tightly.

"What the hell happened?" I asked furiously, I was about ready to go kill this guy; I wouldn't have been able to take him, it was the anger speaking. Ralph was a personal trainer at the local gym; he looks like an ape on steroids.

"I don't know what happened. I got up and asked him if he was going to bed and he just went off at me. Why does this always happen? Why can't I find a decent guy in this city!?" Emily started to cry, she cupped her face in her hands.

"It seems all the good ones are taken, like you for example. Jessica is always going off about how special you are and how kind you are to her; it makes me wonder when I'll be able to find someone like you." She sucked back her tears and some mucus wiping her eyes with the navy blue mittens I picked up for her a few weeks ago.

"Don't worry you'll find some-" I wasn't able to even finish my sentence; Emily had pressed her lips to mine. It was just like the night at the pumpkin patch. I was lost in a whirlwind of lust as I returned her kisses and slowly massaged her tongue with my own. We were kissing for only a few minutes. A surge of emotions passed through me all at once, shock, excitement, sorrow, lust. She wanted me and I wanted her.

"I'm pathetic…"

"No you're not."

"Yes I am. I just kissed my friend's boyfriend…" Emily looked away from me, she may have been blushing, but it was too dark to tell.

"Its ok, part of that fault is on me. I'd be lying to you if I told you that I didn't want it as well."

"This is wrong." Emily turned her head away from me and looked at the ground.

"Its ok, we'll pretend this never happened alright?" I said warmly as I smiled at her.

"What if…I don't want to pretend it didn't happen? What if I wanted it to happen?"

"What are you trying to say?"

"I…I love you!" Emily blurted out staring at me dead in the eye.

I don't remember exactly what happened next. Her words left me stunned. After that confession more came.

"It's always been you, always--" Emily began tenderly.

"I asked Susan to swap places with me when I saw that she was sitting next to you in class. Then when Jessica told me she liked you I realized that I couldn't go against her.. At first, you seemed so plain and well, average. As I got to know you my feelings changed and at the pumpkin patch I was finally able to admit to myself that I did have feelings for you and when we kissed, I felt it. But, it still didn't stop you from pursuing Jessica…"

"Why!? Why couldn't you just leave her at that point! It was obvious that I liked you! Why did you have to torture me and announce that you two were dating! When I heard that I…I… " Emily was unable to finish; she had succumbed to her tears and sank to her knees.

"I'm sorry." I said in my most gentle and tender voice although I knew it wouldn't comfort her.

"Come back to my place, you can sleep there with me tonight." I said as I offered her my hand, she embraced it and together we walked back to my apartment. I was done fighting; I had given in to my carnal desire.

The next day I met Jessica and Emily for lunch at our usual table. I had a bad feeling.

"There he is! Ask him for yourself if you don't believe me." Emily said energetically as she waved to me, I gave a slight hand gesture, which on a different day would have been a less energetic wave, but today it was barely a hand flick.

"Is it true?" Jessica asked in a tone I had never heard her use before.

"Is what true?" I asked confused looking to Emily for signs of what Jessica meant; I could have sworn I saw an almost sinister smile on Emily's face.

"Is it true that Emily spent the night with you?" Jessica asked once more in that same demanding tone. I wish I could have seen where this was going, looking back at it I feel like a fool for not understanding.

"Yes…" I began, that was all Jessica needed to hear. She stood up and slapped me hard across the face.

"You're a horrible person!" She shouted before storming off.

"What the hell was that about?" I demanded as I massaged the sore spot on my left cheek.

Emily had stretched the truth about what happened the night before to Jessica in hopes of breaking us up. I stormed out of the dining hall hoping to catch Jessica. I caught up to her in front of the fountain in the center of the quad.

"Jessica wait!" I shouted behind her.

"For what!? For you to tell me that you've been cheating with her the whole time?" Jessica retorted angrily.

"No, I'm telling you that Emily was lying. Yes she did spend the night, but nothing happened…"

"Is that so? Emily told me you guys were up the entire night, which would explain why you ditched class today!"

Shit, she had me there. I missed class because my alarm hadn't gone off. At this point I would have wagered anything that Emily had turned off my alarm when she left my apartment.

"My alarm didn't go off…" I said weakly. I didn't even believe myself when I said that.

"Please, just look at me!" I took Jessica by the shoulders so she would face me, her body may have been facing me, but her head was looking off in the distance.

"I…I can't do this!" She shouted as she shook herself loose then ran off blending in with the crowd.


	4. Chapter 4: December

**December**

Emily stopped coming to class and she stopped taking the train, it was as if she was trying to seclude herself from the world. Each morning I would wake up to a new text message from her on my phone, sometimes they would say "I love you." or "Be mine."

Two days before Christmas break I got a text message from Jessica, she asked if we could talk, she said she was working on a project in room 309 of the Science Center and she would be there until five o'clock. I wanted to get this mess cleared up; she hadn't spoken to me in about a week and a half. It didn't dawn on me at the time, but room 309 was the same room I had Dr. Fredgold's class with Emily.

It had begun to snow when I got off the train, and the wind began to pick up. It was the makings of a blizzard. The college was about a ten minute walk from the college, it didn't take long before I was standing in front of room 309 and without a second thought I opened the door and stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was that the lights were off.

"Jessica are you in here?" I said thinking I entered the wrong room. I reached for the light switch and I heard a voice through the darkness.

"Leave it off." The voice was that of a woman's, the words felt like barbed wire.

"Hello? Who's there?" A shiver went down my spine, I had a very bad feeling.

I took a few steps into the center of the room and noticed there was a body at the foot of the staircase that lead to the upper rows of desks. I raced to it my fears fully realized; it was Jessica.

"I had to do it." Emily said as she slowly descended the staircase. I had taken Jessica into my arms trying to find a pulse. I found one, but it was faint. It seemed that Emily had hit her over the head with something and left her for dead.

"Why?" I asked watching Emily slowly descend.

"I told you that I wanted you to be mine and now you can." Her voice was cold and callous.

"The second day of class I asked Susan to switch seats with me so I could be closer to you, despite telling Jessica I liked you she just couldn't leave well enough alone. She told me it was too late and that she wanted to see where the relationship would take her." Emily said motioning towards Jessica's unconscious body.

"It most certainly took her down a different path than she had imagined." The same sinister smile resurfaced on Emily's once friendly face.

Emily descended a few more stairs and was close enough to me so I could see her clearly. She was illuminated in the moonlight, her clothes was covered in blood and her eyes were lifeless.

"Emily, don't do anything silly. I'm going to go get help." I said rising to my feet showing my palms to Emily.

"No. You're not going anywhere. There's still one thing I need to take care of." Emily was now on the step above me looking down.

"To make sure that no one will ever take you from me again, there is one thing that must be done." I saw something metallic glisten in her hand, but by the time I realized what it was, it was too late. Emily jumped on top of me knocking me over, my head hit the floor pretty hard and everything was hazy. Emily raised the scalpel above her head and said the last words she would ever say to me:

"Good bye."

The world began to melt away and I felt Emily's body collapse on top of me. I thought I saw Jessica standing over us with a biology book in her right hand, but I wasn't sure. I thought I heard someone; it had to have been Jessica, say 'hold on.' The floor was cold and it chilled me to the bones. I realized that it wasn't the floor that was cold, I was the one who was cold, and it was just getting worse. I closed my eyes succumbing to the cold tile floor and before the world melted away I heard a faint voice say: "I love you."

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And thus ends my short story, I hope those who read this story will enjoy it and leave feedback.


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